Pledge of Allegiance declared unconstitutional
 

References to God in anything to do with the Government shouldn't be there in the first place. It's a little sad to see it took almost 50 years to at least strike that down.

Thumbs up to freedom of religion or lack of religion.

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My anti-drug is non-consensual sex with minors.
AIM: Mista Saki

Well, we've almost certainly got a Supreme Court decision coming up--let's hope they have the same outlook.

Next target: our money.

Indeed. There's been some interesting commentary about it on MSNBC.



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~*~Samantha~*~

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based in San Francisco, the 9th circuit court of appeals is the biggest front for the communist party this country has. this ruling and their opinion proves it.

prime candidates for the Religious Left these freaks. yup.

thumbs down to the constitution in general

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care to enlighten us on your reasoning?


[This message has been edited by Nate the Grate (edited 06-26-2002).]

Shut up you vegan godless communist.

originally bumbled by the brown-shirt Judge Alfred T. Goodwin:

This educated idiot can't properly decipher the word identical. God is not Jesus, Vishnu, Zeus, etc. For him to stretch the definition of 'identical' under an Establishment Clause premise is further proof he's a frustrated Marxist.

no problem, kind sir

it's used as the counter-argument to so many proposals that would potentially improve your country. "no - because it says in the constitution blah blah blah...". people aren't interested about whether it's a good idea or not, they'd rather adhere to a flawed and outdated 200-odd-year old document

each idea should be taken on its individual merits, that's my argument

[This message has been edited by scouse_dave (edited 06-26-2002).]

My inner child says fuck you!

it had nothing to do with the founding of the country. eisenhower added that line in the 50's because of his own beliefs, not to pay homage to history

i would have to agree that religion shouldn't be enforced...but isn't "God" a pretty broad term? It doesn't say anywhere about a specific religion

and if you are Atheist....why does using the word god even matter if there is no higher power? can't you just laugh it off?

Well, to make an extreme example, if you don't believe in an Aryan master race does that mean you can laugh off the ideology of Nazi Germany? If people are using personal beliefs to control aspects of people's lives, it should be cause for questioning.

But we have that... they're called amendments? I don't think there's anything wrong with the constitution. It's the blatant disregard for it. If nobody cares, the government tries to get away with whatever they can. There are many laws that are anti-constitutional but because of general consensus of a wide majority of morons who live in this country, politicians get away with passing laws that are oppressive.

If this gets the pledge of allegiance out of schools, then I hope they take the "In God We Trust" off of the fucking coins as well.

i wonder why they just can't make the kids recite the original form of pledge of allegiance that francis bellamy wrote.

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"i've heard of unisex, but i've never had it."-monty python.

By putting 'under god' in the Pledge, you are alienating people with polytheistic belief system, atheists and agnostics, and they make up a pretty big piece of the american pie.

The pledge was written by a priest sometime in the 1800s, a priest who knew it would be against the spirit of the constitution to make any mention of god in the pledge.

Do you have any fucking clue what it takes to amend the Constitution? It's almost impossible, and that's why there hasn't been one for about 30 years.

The Constitution is shit and needs to be burned. Why can't you get over the fact that it was written by old men, most of whom had black slaves, and treated women AS slaves. Who gives a fuck if no Constitution allows more legislation? This country runs better under more government. Ever heard of the New Deal or the Great Society? This is when our nation was most prosperous. Read a history book.

From the Declaration of Independence:

pardon my confustion...are you specifically referring to the constitution here? I personally don't see how the words "under God" are used to control aspects of personal lives...but maybe I misunderstood you.

The constitution was last amended about 10 years ago.

Do you even know why there is a constitution? It's the document by which everything in the government operates. Everything. If the constitution was really easy to modify, it wouldn't be stable. It's supposed to be an adamantly stable document. Only drastic changes that are highly demanded are made to it.

Have you ever read the constitution? It's quite obvious that you haven't. Take a glance over it and see how very wrong you are.

Liberal pantywaist. Go get a handjob from Mao's corpse.

haha, whatever...

Because the phrase is symbolic of how the separation of church and state (which is an important concept) is not maintained. People in positions of power are able to pursue their own religious agendas, which impacts on the lives of the population. Witness the diversions of public funds into programs such as the promotion of christianity, and lobbying against established abortion rights. You get the idea

new sig?

The amendment that was ratified ten years ago was originally passed in 1789 moron. It's been 30 years since an amendement passed that was started in the last 50 years. If it takes 200 years just to ratify an amendment, then as I said, it's almost impossible to do.

The reason why the Constitution is so worthless is because it is such a GENERAL document. Each article can be interpreted in so many ways. Why even have a document like that when Congress and the Supreme Court are going to make their own rules and interpretations anyway?

If anything, the Constitution creates instability because you have all these groups protesting each other about what the Old White Men actually meant when they wrote that shit.

I consider myself to be a centrist. Even a centrist can see that more government, when accepted by the masses, creates prosperity. Just take a look at FDR's administration. You'll figure it out.

Sounds pretty liberal to me, dickweed.

it doesnt matter if the word 'God' showed up in some political document before 1954, the appearence of 'God' in the pledge of allegiance actually was based on eisenhower's personal beliefs, and not on the beliefs of jefferson or any of the other founding fathers

Are you oblivious to the fact that you elect the people that serve in congress, you fuckwit?

Are you oblivious to the fact that once politicians are elected to office by the people, they become influenced solely by money/big business and special interests, cunt cheese?

Congress and the White House have already blasted the ruling, and when gets to the Supreme Court, it will be D.O.A.

If Eisenhower signed legislation, it first would have been passed by Congress. There fore it could not have been solely Eisenhower's belief.

And since God was mentioned in the Declaration of Independence, how can you assume that it was merely Eisenhower's personal belief? Couldn't he be reiterating the beliefs of the Founding Fathers--including in the Pledge of Allegiance the same thoughts/beliefs documented in the D of I?

That's obvious after reading this:

"In recent years, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned 27 of 29 9th Circuit decisions so that tells you that the 9th Circuit is out of step with the rest of the federal judiciary," said Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa.


This just shows that what happens when a judicial body continually attempts to bring the U.S. into the 21st century. The Supreme Court puts us back into the 18th century. And not only is it impossible to change the Constitution, it's just as hard to change the Supreme Court, especially when they choose our President.

hahaha. I wrote an article on exactly that, and the vice principal refused to let us print it because it was "too controversial." There's some values to teach high school journalists - stay away from controversial topics! Write about scrapbooking and wholesome movies!

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[This message has been edited by Smiley33 (edited 06-26-2002).]

The Supreme Court is considered to be one of the most conservative courts in the country as well...

It's interesting to note though, that at the beginning of each day the court is in session, God is mentioned at the beginning of the day... I forget the exact phrase, something along the lines of "May God watch over this court..." This means that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals hear that every day...

The first words of the First Amendment are as follows: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion ... "

If you can tell me how the placing of the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, a document which is required to be recited by millions of schoolchildren across this country each day and that is meant to lay out some of the most basic tenets of American society, does not favor the establishment of a monotheistic Judeo-Christian heritage in this country, by all means, let me know.

And I loved this part of the Bush administration's response: "The Supreme Court starts off its sessions by [evoking God]." Despite the fact that's fundamentally different than reciting a pledge to a bunch of impressionable schoolchildren--a pledge that was put into law by the Congress, which is not the same thing as a traditional greeting of a high court. That's not in the law--and, frankly, if it is, that's unconstitutional, too.

And by the way--don't give me that Founding Fathers crap. Many of them were deists. The Second Great Awakening was a direct response to the trend towards deism started in America by some of its biggest celebrities at the time--the Founding Fathers. Just because a document says something (e.g. the references to God in the D of I) doesn't make it golden.

Thank God for the court's sanity and levelheadedness among this post-9/11 religious fervor. (Another interesting point: there are lots of parallels between America now and America in 1954, when Eisenhower's administration put "under God" in the pledge. Any time America undergoes crisis, its people run towards their God--which is fine, that's their right, but it's ridiculous to purge the rights of others in doing so.)

werd.

Isn't there some mention of God in the courts too? Do they still use that to swear you in? I'm fucking slow